Category Archives: Arc 8.5.0: Crisscross

“If you value your lives and the lives of those you care about, you’ll intervene from a distance if at all. If that creature bites you, you’ll be linked to it, or worse, become part of it.”

She watched me, waiting, I guessed, for my response.

“We won’t, at least most of us. We’ve been warded against it. I know you don’t like the source, but it works, and if you think about it, I’d bet that the blood magic you’re familiar with can’t do that.”

The bounce threw me into the air. Unlike Haley, who had the reflexes necessary to land on her feet, I had the reflexes necessary to slam into the road, and didn’t want to.

I tapped my palm, giving the “hover” command, a command that told the suit to calculate the best way to kill momentum and bring the suit upright. The world blurred around me as the rockets fired in a pattern I couldn’t have come up with on the fly.

Instead of bouncing off the Thing, flipping in the air, and flying off in some random direction dictated by the way my arms and legs flailed in the air, the rockets shut off for a moment. Then as I began to flip over they fired, stopped, and fired again. By the time they were done, I found myself fifty feet in the air, and about thirty feet past the Thing. Continue reading Crisscross: Part 10→

Before anyone could move, he nipped Philo’s shoulder, and lunged for me. I held up my arms, one forward in a block, and pulling the other back, ready to punch.

It bit my blocking arm, completely surrounding it from the elbow up, but that didn’t last. Warmth suffused my body, and a red glow tinged my view of the scene. The view from one of my spybots showed that the entire Rocket suit glowed red.

At the same moment, The Thing That Eats spit my hand out of its mouth, yelping in pain. Not wasting the moment, I punched it with all the strength the Rocket suit had, aiming a little upward. Continue reading Crisscross: Part 9→

My HUD showed my armor’s status as 89%—as in 11% of the armor’s cells had been damaged and no longer responded to commands. Even though the anti-tank mini-missile hadn’t hurt me, that counted for something.

If she had more of those, I might be forced to use the laser or the killbot.

“Getting people out of the way,” Haley said. “That’s what we’re doing.”

The woman in the Eagle suit was standing up, but not doing anything yet. I pointed my arms in her direction, saying, “Don’t move!” The Rocket suit’s PA system made sure she heard me.

I was about to tell Kid Biohack that as long as he was getting civilians out of harm’s way, he might also watch for Alden. He was the only one of us with a realistic chance of catching the guy. Continue reading Crisscross: Part 6→

My helmet dimmed the light as the lightning leapt from Vaughn’s black gloved hand, outlining the Eagle suit in sparks. The woman in red must have been struck too because she convulsed, even if she didn’t fall out of the air.

The Eagle suit did fall. It landed on the edge of one of the Escalades’ hoods, crumpling the metal underneath, but simultaneously jumping lightly to the ground. Then she flipped the Escalade onto its side.

Whoever was inside obviously hadn’t been hurt, but the wings had. One hung loosely, almost touching the ground. The other had retracted into a straight line that hung behind the suit’s back. A little smoke rose from the metal casing between the wings. Continue reading Crisscross: Part 4→

“Going visible,” I said, and took the stealth suit out of camouflage mode. Now the stealth suit appeared in “classic” mode—all black with silver helmet and a silver “R” on the chest.

Waving with my right hand, I tried to get their attention while checking the comm to see if they were listed as using the common Heroes Alliance protocols. They appeared on the list as “PF AFS Unit 1” and “PF AFS Unit 2,” but they weren’t the only Protection Force people on the list. I didn’t have time to count, but there were at least ten, maybe twenty more. Continue reading Crisscross: Part 3→

I dropped my books off in my dorm room—as in I literally dumped the books (and notebooks) from my backpack on the floor, shut the door, and ran up the steps to the top floor of the dorm. I made a quick check for people in the little alcove under the hatch to the roof.

Assisted by the stealth suit that was hidden under my clothes, I crawled up the ladder more quickly than I would have normally, and flipped the hatch open to find Vaughn, Camille, and Haley already there and in costume.